I am a recent convert from Treo to Blackberry Pearl and am trying to figure out a solution for my email. I am currently using BIS and Apple programs (iCal, Address Book, Mail). I would like to be as efficient as possible with my email and computer sync so as not to create double the work with deletion of emails in 2 places. I have read about BES and this seems like the answer but can I use it without switching over to Entourage/Contacts/etc? Do any of these 3rd party servers offer excellent Mac support? I use iCal for my work schedule and this syncs with .Mac to keep several of my team members up to date so switching to Entourage may create some issues for me and make it prohibitive to move to BES. If I stay on BIS can I reconcile my Mail account with a POP3 (cox cable)? So far I have been unable to do this with cox mail but can easily do this with yahoo mail. Any help or suggestions will be appreciated to increase my productivity when away from my desktop.

As a Mac user I had the same issue. The only solution I found was using Entourage, and a hosted BES. Although I have not tried it, I am sure there is a way with ExchangemyMail or any other hosted exchange server to "share" your calendar, but don't take my word for it. It's pretty much the consensus across the forums that ExchangeMyMail is the best, and I agree.

As for staying with BIS; I have not heard of any other mail program that completely reconciles email other than Yahoo.

I've been using Entourage, ExchangeMyMail with their MS-Exchange and BES service for almost a year and can't say enough good about it. I have 2 Macs plus the BB and all 3 are in constant sync with each other for email, contacts and calendar. Entourage does not support syncing of notes and tasks which is kind of a pain, I still end up using Pocketmac once in a while to keep them in sync. It is almost scary how fast an update on any of the 3 units propagates to the other 2, you can press enter on my laptop and watch the update appear on the BB almost instantly. It is not cheap, I pay $30 per month over my standard BB plan - $20 per month (actually $18 with the BB Forums discount) to EMM, and an extra $10 to T-Mo for the BES support. Entourage seems to be the weakest link, in addition to the lack of tasks and notes, email sent from Entourage does not get synced to the BB, but if you send from the BB it will show up in Entourage (using your MS-Exchange email, POP and IMAP are another story since they still sync through BIS). I mainly wanted the calendar and contacts syncing, and this was the only way I found to have it totally reliable. I ended up setting up my own domain through GoDaddy so my MS-Exchange email address is totally unique to myself. Otherwise I think you end up using an ExchangeMyMail address which I didn't want.